After: Nineteen Stories of Apocalypse and Dystopia (25 page)

It was stupid to give myself away. But I just shrugged. Then I remembered what we’d
been talking about before Caravaggio started showing me pictures.

“A hundred gold pieces, right now,” I said. “And I’m not going in the water.” I didn’t
say that, even if I got as dumb as a boy, I couldn’t swim.

“We’ll talk about that,” he said. “Fifty. Any more will get you and your friends killed.”
He was suspicious, maybe frightened after what he felt me do.

We settled on seventy-five, and he said shooting began in a few days. Tag counted
the coins out for me in a little room near the front door of the studio. He whispered,
“I followed you around and took those shots of you and your crew. I got him interested.”
He looked at me, curious and scared, like he guessed my secret. I nodded and kept
quiet, but now I knew Depose had nothing to do with my getting hired.

In that huge front room, an owl showed humans how to make posters of Jackie look old
and how to tell tourists they had found them in old trunks. I knew that even the ones
who said there had really been a Jackie Boy also said Caravaggio kept him chained
like a dog and only let him out to make movies, until he escaped.

The bear and the truck waited for me outside. As we drove away I looked back: the
lights, the guards, the street with people standing outside their buildings talking,
little kids playing after dark, was magic and I wanted all of it.

Riding home I was cold, and the only light ahead of us was the glow from the Tourist
Zone way uptown. I thought about the city Caravaggio showed me and remembered how
my mom died when the superflu was killing everyone. The UN medics couldn’t stop it.
Some of them died. They told me I must have good genes and wanted to know who my father
was, but I couldn’t help them.

It was then that I met Dare. Her mother was dead too, so we had that in common and
she was tough, took me under her wing, protected me until I got able to take care
of myself. She had done gold diving but gave it up when she saw what happened to older
kids. Together we worked out the deal with the boys.

The truck stopped in Madison Square, which is semi-wrecked buildings around a park
that’s a jungle nobody wants to go near. We have a lair in the cellar of a building
that still stands on the west side of the square and has water, and we’ve got the
entrances booby-trapped.

Lott, who’s too sick to dive, guards the place night and day. We brought in Rock as
his replacement. Ursus made the truck wait while I rattled the gates and said the
password, and Lott let me in before they drove away.

The Indians at the clinic say Lott’s got a few things wrong but it’s lung cancer that’s
going to kill him. Dare thinks it’s because we got him too late and if we’d been looking
out for him sooner he’d be okay.

The boys were behind the curtains at the back of our place, laughing about the way
we’d stood down the bike boys and Regalia. I could hear Lott’s heavy breathing.

Dare said, “I don’t much trust any of them.” I didn’t either, but it was the best
deal we’d ever had. I wanted to show her the studio, but when I tried, what I found
in her was fear that she was going to lose me.

So instead I told her about Caravaggio and Tagalong and the studio, made it funny
and had her laughing.

4.

Once we started shooting, I spent more time in the deadly sun with less protection
than I had all that summer. One morning I stood on a rusty fire escape ladder just
above a flooded street with the tide coming in and waited for Caravaggio’s signal.
He and the camera crew were on the roof of the next building.

Three times I’d climbed four stories to the roof of this burned-out factory building
where
Astasia X99’s
boyfriend was being held by alien pirates. Each time, something went wrong and I had
to do it again.

Dare was angry at what I was doing, but she tested the ladder herself and cleaned
every rung before she’d let me go near it. After each take I got dowsed in purified
water. The long T-shirt and shorts clung to me; my hair was wet and flat on my head.

All my life, pimps, militias, and gangs were on the prowl. A lot of any kid’s life
in this city is not getting noticed. Now I’d given that up to bring in money.

Earlier in the morning, before the shoot, we went up to the UN clinic in the big temporary
building that’s been standing ever since I can remember in the empty space people
call Times Square.

Everyone in line was tense but nobody knew anything. Dare told the medicos what we
needed. The Indian guy at the counter gave us double orders of salves, lotions, water
purifier pills. “Just in case,” he said, but didn’t know much either.

I was thinking about that when someone said, “Action!” Just like before, I grabbed
the handrails, held my breath, shut my eyes, ducked under the water, jumped out like
I’d just swum there, and ran up the ladder to the roof.

Caravaggio was slumped in a chair but he raised his head and said, “Great!” I knew
what was great was me coming out of the poison muck. For my crew I was doing stuff
I didn’t know I could do. Up on the roof Dare led me behind a blanket in the shade,
got my clothes off, doused me in clean water and oil, and put me in a robe.

Mai Kin stood maybe thirty feet away under a metal awning, surrounded by guys in protective
gear. Her character,
Astasia X99
, gets made over and rearranged in every installment. We watched a bunch of episodes.
She has a boyfriend, Anselm, that she always has to rescue.

The actor who plays Anselm spent most of his time coming on to Rock. The other boys
were jealous.

The episodes always take place in danger spots like New York. Mai Kin and company
go in and shoot for a few days when it’s quiet, then get out and finish the thing
somewhere safe. There’s always some other guy Astasia gets involved with before going
back to Anselm. But that would get shot somewhere else.

Fighter planes streaked over the city. Mai Kin glanced up, then looked at one of her
handlers. His head-shake was so slight as to be invisible. Looking away, I went inside
him; found he was getting news every couple of minutes. The UN had Liberty Land and
Northeast Command negotiating.
Touch and go
was the thought on his mind. I got out before he noticed.

Mai Kin wore a silk robe decorated with pictures of the planets. Dare said that up
close she looked old and mean and way over twenty. Mai Kin was wired like most tourists,
spoke into an implant in her left hand, and shook her head at something she heard.
She never spoke to me or smiled, but never took her eyes off me.

I didn’t have to get in her head to know that she hated me for looking like I did,
for being alive in the same world she was. She slipped out of her robe and, wearing
clothes identical to mine, walked to the spot where I’d come off the ladder onto the
roof. Shooting her, Tagalong said, was like filming a robot.

When the light was gone and shooting stopped, we headed home, moved fast in the moonlight.
Rock had disappeared.

“Making it with that actor tourist—that whore,” Not said. Dare was pissed but sorry
to lose him.

Not far from our place there was an explosion up ahead. We’d heard enough of them
to know this was small, a grenade, not a bomb. We sped up and I tried to scan, to
find Lott and see through his eyes, but I couldn’t.

Turning the corner we saw our lair with the locks and bars and door all blown off.
Smoke drifted out. “Lott!” Dare yelled.

Regalia came out the door with a couple of her crew. She had an AK474 knockoff. The
Peacekeepers would have shot her for carrying it, which meant they weren’t around.
She leveled it at us and said, “Drop whatever you got—weapons, money—and you won’t
get hurt.”

Dare held our gold. She stared back at Regalia and didn’t move. I went into Regalia’s
head. The first thing I saw was all of us standing, eyes wide staring at her. She
thought that was funny because she was about to shoot us down one by one. For her
the sight of Lott’s bloody corpse was funny.

Her trigger finger twitched. I found her right arm and jerked the AK474 up. A burst
went into the air.

She tried to get control of her hands. I yanked her to the side, fired a burst at
her crew. One went down screaming; the other backed off. A couple more came out the
door of our lair. I turned her their way, fired again, caught one in the face. Then
the gun jammed.

I found Regalia’s heart and lungs, tried to tear them out of her body. Her eyes bulged.
I moved her legs, ran her to the side of the building, and made her smash her head
against the wall until the brains came out. All the time she made strangled noises
and danced like a headless bird. When life went out of her, I couldn’t make the body
move, and she fell to the ground.

The rest of her crew had come out the door. Dare had her gun out, threatened to kill
them. Hassid and Not slammed them around, took back the stuff the crew stole. One
that had been shot half crawled away. Another was dead. The boys stared at the bodies.
Only Dare knew what I’d done. She made Regalia’s crew drag their dead away with them.

We found Lott inside, where the blast had killed him, wrapped his body in blankets
and carried him into the park. We had a shovel and took turns digging it deep so the
rats couldn’t get him. We buried the AK474 in another place.

Dare talked a little about how much we loved him. All I could think was I didn’t want
to die like that. Even Dare was kind of afraid of me.

We huddled together in the lair, knowing we’d never stay there again. No one slept
much, but I sat awake on guard. Almost at dawn I started crying and Dare held me,
whispering, “You saved all of us. You’re a hero.”

5.

The next morning, Caravaggio was shooting on the waterfront. The crew and I were there
because we had nowhere else to go. I looked for a chance to beg him for a place to
stay. Our lair was gone. I felt older than Caravaggio, older than anyone. Rock had
left us, Lott was dead, and after what I saw and did the night before, I half wished
I was dead too.

Nice, Not, and Hassid dived for fake coins tossed by actors dressed in protective
gear. The boys’ hearts weren’t in it. We were zombies. They missed the coins and Caravaggio
screamed at them, screamed at Dare and me.

Mai Kin and her handlers hadn’t shown up. Caravaggio yelled at Tagalong, who couldn’t
contact them. Everyone said the Peacekeepers weren’t around. On the water, scared
passengers were cramming onto the ferries. Copters and planes took off from Liberty
Land.

This world of mine was tougher now than it ever had been. Tagalong got definite word
that the UN had withdrawn from the city. I said we had nowhere to live and asked him
if we could stay at the studio until we found a place. He just sighed and looked at
Caravaggio, who was yelling about traitors and ingrates.

I stood out on the seawall and Nice stood with me, rubbed my neck. I had my arm around
him for comfort. We heard jets but didn’t see them. Then, over in New Jersey, lights
flashed like the sun on a knife blade. Next came explosions, big muffled ones. Caravaggio
suddenly shut up. A moment later there was smoke over Liberty Land Stronghold, more
flashes.

“Seems like Northeast Command took them out,” someone said softly.

We should have been looking closer to us. I saw the ferries moving fast on the river,
trying to scatter, before I heard the copters. Rockets exploded. The seawall slid
out from under my feet. Nice got torn away from me. I flew toward a huge wave and
hit the water face-first.

It was in my eyes and nose, drowning me. I reached out for Dare, caught other minds.
I felt Nice get cut in two. Someone’s legs were crushed. Water was in my mouth and
nose. I sank into the filth of the river bottom. I wanted Dare to have her arms around
me. Then I was rising, pulled by my hair.

My head broke the surface. Not far away, flames floated on the water. People screamed.
Dare hauled me up onto solid ground, pulled the clothes off me. Hassid was there.
He washed me off and I let him. They put lotion on me.

Dare held me. She was crying. Nice was gone. They couldn’t find his body. Only when
I sat up did I see the gash on Dare’s leg and knew what she risked to save me. She
didn’t make a sound when Hassid cleaned and bandaged her wound.

As if he was far away, I heard Caravaggio crying, “When I first came to the city,
it was half wrecked but vibrant in its death dance.” I caught images in his brain
of destroyed streets with kids in costumes dancing through them. A flickering figure
flew into the air, caught a coin in his mouth, bounced off the water. Then there was
nothing and I knew Caravaggio was dead.

We went to Tagalong, who stood in tears as Caravaggio got lifted onto the truck. Dare
and Not and Hassid were with me. Through Tagalong’s eyes, I saw how sad and ragged
we were. Then I showed him what had happened to us and to Regalia, and asked if we
could stay at the studio. Scared but impressed, he nodded.

6.

“He loved the chimeras,” Tagalong said a little later when we brought Caravaggio’s
body home. More of them than I thought were still alive waited outside the studio.
Ursus was there and the bird woman who was in charge of the door, a pony and the cat
and the man who was part fox, a cat man and cat woman, Silky the seal, big dogs, a
goat, and the owl. I didn’t even know what some of the others were. They howled and
moaned when they saw the corpse.

They laid Caravaggio out in the big front room and dressed him like a king in silks
and furs. Flowers appeared and candles lighted the place. A hundred and more people
came from the neighborhood; a few even came from farther away, risking the streets
to see him one last time.

Some brought food. The people in the kitchen cooked more.

Tagalong gave the four of us a large enough room with futons on the floor. We piled
them together, lay on them, held each other and cried. Dare made plans to go next
day and find Nice’s body. I didn’t want to think.